Puka Nacua: From Utah High School Star to NFL Record-Breaker
Before Puka Nacua became a record-breaking NFL rookie with the Los Angeles Rams, he was a standout athlete at Orem High School in Utah. His journey to NFL stardom is a testament to his talent, hard work, and the support of his family and coaches. This article explores Nacua's early life, high school achievements, college career, and his meteoric rise in the NFL.
Early Life and High School Dominance
Las Vegas native Puka Nacua's focus was on football, but he also played point guard for the school's basketball team. Nacua's mother, Penina, told the Deseret News that even as a young boy, Puka took sports very seriously. He was already watching ESPN when other kids his age were still obsessed with cartoons. “He would watch ESPN, he’d watch all the football and basketball highlights because my husband planted the seeds already with Puka,” Penina Nacua told Donaldson.
Before his NFL stardom, Nacua was a star at Utah’s Orem High. During his senior year, he set single-season state records for receptions, yards, and touchdowns, becoming the top receiver in the country. These achievements led to him being named “Mr. Football 2018” by the Deseret News.
Reporter Amy Donaldson spoke with his loved ones and coaches about what made then-17-year-old Nacua special - and what type of player he was destined to become. Nacua's high school coach, Jeremy Hill, told the Deseret News in 2018, “He’s such a good kid, quick-witted with a great sense of humor, loves life, loves to practice, and he’s a kid who is going to remain in your heart forever as one of your favorite kids you’ve ever coached."
Hill admitted to Donaldson that Nacua’s skills weren’t obvious during the first summer they practiced together. But once fall arrived, and he started having his players run drills in pads, the young receiver’s talent became impossible to deny. “The way he moved, how he always knew where he was and what was going on, the intellect he had, even at that young age, that’s when I knew he was going to be playing on Sundays. I definitely knew he was special,” Hill said.
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As a senior at Orem High, Nacua set new Utah high school records with 260 career receptions, 5,226 yards, and 58 touchdowns. After his final season of 103 catches for 2,336 yards and 26 scores - three single-season state records - Nacua went on to earn Polynesian Bowl Offensive MVP honors.
College Career: Washington and BYU
Nacua initially committed to the University of Washington, where he played for two seasons. He appeared in eight games with three starts in 2019 as a freshman, with seven passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns. In the Huskies' truncated 2020 season, Nacua played in each of the first three games. The former Tigers standout caught nine passes for 151 yards and a touchdown, a 65-yarder against Arizona, and was named the coaches' Offensive Player of the Game with a career-best six catches for 67 yards in a 24-21 win over Utah. Not so long ago, they were University of Washington football teammates and fellow wide receivers during the COVID-interrupted season of 2020, together for just four games, both largely used as reserves. Puka Nacua and Rome Odunze.
In their time together, Nacua finished as the Huskies' second-leading receiver in the abbreviated 2020 season with 9 catches for 151 yards and a 65-yard toucdown grab against Arizona, trailing only tight end Cade Otton, who had 18 catches for 258 yards and 3 scores. Moving up the UW depth chart, Odunze that day effectively replaced Nacua, who would have been next up to start if he wasn't ill.
After two seasons with the Washington Huskies, Puka Nacua felt a pull back toward Utah, the place his family moved after his father died so that his mother could be closer to her support system. He had spent much of the pandemic with his family there and even daydreamed with his brother Samson, then a member of the Utah Utes, about playing football together again.
He then transferred to BYU, where his older brothers Kai and Isaiah had played. By transferring to BYU, Nacua was able to play with his brother Samson on the same field where their older brothers Kai and Isaiah had played before. “We were just talking … and something in the conversation brought us to never having the opportunity to play with each other,” said Nacua to KSL in 2021 about his and Samson’s decision to transfer to BYU at the same time. “That was what kind of sparked the conversation that BYU would be the place to do it, to come back home and play in front of mom.”
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Puka Nacua shined at BYU. He worked with wide receivers coach Fesi Sitake, who became a mentor. In 21 games over two seasons, Nacua led the Cougars in receiving yards, finishing with 91 catches for 1,430 yards and 11 touchdowns. Sitake taught Nacua "how to be a pro," BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said. At Washington, Nacua was "really raw," according to Roderick.
NFL Career: Los Angeles Rams
That development at BYU led to the Rams drafting Nacua in the fifth round in April. The Los Angeles Rams wide receiver takes the field prior to an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, in Inglewood, Calif. When McVay was asked earlier this month what he liked about Nacua during the pre-draft process, the coach said, "Everything that you're seeing."
He surprised the league by becoming quarterback Matthew Stafford’s most reliable target in the absence of injured receiver Cooper Kupp. Through the first three weeks of the 2023-24 NFL season, Nacua has 338 yards off 30 receptions, according to ESPN. He’s averaging 11.3 yards per catch.
Nacua has emerged as perhaps the biggest surprise of the Rams' season, but the mother who raised him and the siblings who grew up with him have known for a while what teammates are coming to find out this year. "The Seattle game is kind of a microcosm of what the season has been for him. He's just done a great job of answering the bell," said Kupp, who missed the first four games on injured reserve. "When things haven't gone well, he's just been able to get back in the huddle and play the next snap."That's a testament to Puka and his mentality."
In Week 2, Nacua set the league's single-game record for receptions by a rookie (15), propelling himself into the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year conversation. He hit the 1,000-yard receiving mark 12 games into his career, and he already has a franchise record for receiving yards for a rookie.
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One of Nacua's strengths is visualization, something he said he learned from his dad when they started watching highlights of Lawrence Taylor and Earl Campbell. It's something Nacua said is huge for him.
Family Influence and Overcoming Challenges
Toughness was instilled in Nacua from a young age. He grew up admiring his four brothers and watching everything they did, especially on the football field. Nacua and his siblings spent a lot of time in the backyard playing football -- and beating up on Puka. "Oh, my goodness," his brother Samson said. "We used to demolish this kid. Every chance we'd get, we were just probably lobbing the ball in the air. … So, literally every chance we got, he was either the tackling dummy or really just helping us out to train us. … It was drill after drill. Lining up Oklahoma drills, even in a backyard with each other, and just really going at it."
A few years before Lionel died, he was standing in the end zone watching Puka play in a youth football game when Penina walked over. Lionel turned to Penina and whispered, "He's going to be the best one out of all the boys." Puka heard that story many times growing up. But even knowing that sentiment, he said he didn't feel added pressure because, as he realized from watching his brothers, there was "a game plan.""My mom always has told me this and I knew as a kid, my father and my mom believed that I would be the one to kind of make it," he said.
It was not only those backyard sessions that shaped Puka but what he saw when his siblings played in games. "I wanted to be what I saw," he said. And what he saw? From Samson, "the fluidness and the art side of the game." And from his brothers Isaiah, a safety, and Kai, a defensive end, "the destructive, powerful, rough part of the game of football.""I saw those two worlds, and I was like, 'Oh, there's a possibility to do both,'" Puka said. He has married the skill sets beautifully in his rookie season, never more evident than against the Cleveland Browns in Week 13, when he made a twisting catch down the sideline, one Rams coach Sean McVay called "unbelievable."
Lionel died from complications of diabetes 15 days before Puka turned 11. Puka's grandmother died from ovarian cancer in 2021. Penina prayed to Lionel and her mother, Fa'aTamali'i S. Tafua, asking them to "please be there with Puka. I can't make it out." "There was no doubt in my mind, they were there," Penina said. "Because he was balling. So, I just literally knew. I was like, 'See, your angels are there.'"
And while that visualization typically takes place as he is looking through the call sheet, Nacua speaks to his dad and grandma during the national anthem as he prepares for his opportunity to show them who he has become. "I don't know exactly what my dad would say or how he feels when he's watching these games, but I know every time I go out there, I'm trying to prove to him that hopefully that he thinks I'm doing a good job and that he's getting a cool seat to watch it," Nacua said.
Character and Leadership
One reason why Lionel Nacua felt that way about Puka is that Puka always took sports very seriously, even as a young boy, Penina Nacua said. That film study paid off, shaping Nacua into a player that his high school coach will never forget. “I tell college coaches the reason you want to fight for this kid, obviously you can see what he’s done on the field, but his personality is so infectious,” Hill said in 2018.
In her own interview for the “Mr. Football” story, Penina Nacua agreed that Puka’s personality would take him far. “He is a great leader,” she said. “He’s a great person. I always tell my boys, ‘Football doesn’t define you.’ It’s been a means to help them get through college, help them get through life. … But I’m just living this out for my husband."
Orem basketball coach Golden Holt had a dilemma: how would he accommodate Nacua while making sure he isn't above the rest of the team? Initially, he thought about booting Nacua from the team despite their close relationship, but after consulting with Orem principal Lynn Gerratt, he decided on a different solution. If Nacua didn't practice with the team that week, he would not play.
“Some of my greatest memories of that season were of Puka on the bench," Holt told Deseret News. "I’m telling you, after a play, at a timeout, a critical point, he was coaching, he was whooping and hollering, he was just pumping everyone up. He was so happy for their success and he’s sitting on the bench. You don’t fake that. He had that kind of charisma, genuineness, good heart and team attitude so lacking in today’s world."
Continued Success
Nearly half a decade later, Nacua and Holt are still exceptionally close. So much so that the rookie sensation invited his former coach to watch the Rams take on the Cleveland Browns at SoFi Stadium on Dec. 3. Not only did the Rams win that game 36-19, but Nacua broke the franchise record for most receiving yards by a rookie.
Nacua has appeared in three postseason contests and recorded 20 catches for 322 receiving yards and one touchdown. He earned Second-Team All-Pro honors and a Pro Bowl nod following his rookie campaign in '23. With 39 receptions, he surpassed Anquan Boldin and his 30 receptions in 2003 for the most receptions ever by a player in their first four NFL games. Recorded the most receiving yards in a rookie debut in Rams history. Recorded a 45-yard rushing touchdown in Week 2 of the 2025 season. It marked the longest rushing touchdown for the Rams since Week 15 of the 2017 season.
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